*I’ve always wanted to write about the Cultural Revolution, and so have decided to put a little something together on that most bizarre period of history. Note that since the point of divergence I’ve chosen isn’t until early 1971, this post will be largely concerned with the events of the Cultural Revolution as they occurred in real life so as to establish some context for what is to come in future updates.
- All the World’s a Stage
It all started with an editorial.
On November 10, 1965, an unsigned article written by Yao Wenyuan was published in the Shanghai-based newspaper 文汇报 (Wenhui bao). The article sharply criticized Wu Han, an eminent historian and a Deputy Mayor of Beijing, and branded him as a counterrevolutionary. The issue at hand was Wu’s popular historical drama 海瑞罢官 (Hai Rui baguan, or Hai Rui Dismissed From Office), which was published in 1959 and which initially received praise from Party luminaries including Mao Zedong himself. In his polemic, Yao argued that far from being a simple historical drama, Hai Rui Dismissed From Office was a coded denunciation of Mao’s policies and a requiem for Peng Dehuai, the former Defence Minister who had been purged after his criticism of Great Leap Forward-era agricultural policies (1). At first, it seemed as though nothing would come of the rather intemperate article. Peng Zhen, the Mayor of Beijing, defended Wu Han, plainly stating that the controversy was academic as opposed to political in nature. Yet events had been set in motion, and little by little the great boulder of revolution began to roll downhill, picking up speed as it went. In the spring of 1966 another harsh denunciation of Wu Han was published, which was followed by the formation of the 文革小组 (Wenge xiaozu, or Cultural Revolution Small Group) in May of that year . . . (2)
- Two Leaps Forward, One Leap Back
The initial attack on Wu Han was written by Yao Wenyuan at the behest of Jiang Qing (3). Yet the plan’s ultimate mastermind was none other than Mao Zedong. In the wake of the man-made famine caused by the misguided policies of the Great Leap Forward, which contributed to the unnecessary deaths of as many as twenty million people, Mao’s standing declined dramatically. He was forced to resign as General Secretary of the Communist Party, and in the early 1960s an increasing amount of power was given to more moderate figures including Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. Mao supported the Cultural Revolution for both ideological and personal reasons; ideologically, he felt that Chinese socialism had grown stale and ossified, and that the nation needed to be reacquainted with the idea of the permanent revolution. Personally, Mao wanted to regain the influence that he had lost and establish himself once more as the sun around which China revolved. In both respects, he succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.
- Youth In Revolt
Much of the impetus for the Cultural Revolution in its early days came from radical students, who took a very pro-Mao line and agitated against anything or anyone who could be classified as a counterrevolutionary. In May and June of 1966, the first 大字报 (dazibao, or big character posters) began to spring up on university campuses from Beijing to Shanghai. Around that time, a group of students from several Beijing high schools formed an organization dedicated to “protect[ing] the Party Central and to protect[ing] our great leader Chairman Mao.” They were called the 红卫兵 (Hongweibing, or Red Guards), and they soon began to clash with the “work teams” that had been sent into the schools by moderate leaders like Peng Zhen and Liu Shaoqi. The Red Guards eventually came to the attention of Mao Zedong and other members of the Cultural Revolution Small Group, including Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng (4), who began to support the students. Before long, the Red Guards had swept through the youth of the nation. Millions of students came to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to hear Mao Zedong speak, and total fealty to Mao Zedong Thought became the highest - and the only - virtue.
- The Old Stinking Ninth
Beginning in the fall of 1966 and continuing through 1968, a wave of violence and chaos swept through China. Spurred on to greater zeal by the words of Mao, Red Guards across the nation began to denounce and attack figures of authority, from their teachers to their parents. Intellectuals, who were dubbed 臭老九 (chou lao jiu, or “Old Stinking Ninth”) (5), perhaps fared worst of all; countless scholars and professors were subjected to “struggle sessions,” in which they were forced to issue self-criticisms, beaten, imprisoned, and sometimes simply killed. Indeed, beginning in 1966 many parts of Chinese society simply shut down; for example, the national college entrance exam ceased to exist for more than ten years. Millions of urbanites were “sent down” to the countryside, supposedly to learn from peasants and to purify themselves through manual labor. For some radical students, this was a task they undertook willingly; for many more people it was a punishment, and families were broken apart for years. Some Party leaders decided to follow Mao’s line at all costs, including Zhou Enlai and Defence Minister Lin Biao, whose influence increased during this period as he loudly and repeatedly pledged his undying and eternal loyalty to Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Officials who questioned the excesses of the Cultural Revolution - and many who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time - were purged (as in the case of Deng Xiaoping, who was sent down to the countryside for several years) or even executed, as was Liu Shaoqi’s fate.
- Better Dead Than Red
After the initial surge of revolutionary enthusiasm, the Red Guards factionalized and fought each other almost as much as they fought the so-called counterrevolutionaries. In cities like Wuhan, full-scale combat erupted in the streets between various local groups and factions, each of which was trying to prove that their adherence to Mao Zedong Thought was purer than that of their rivals. At times, army units intervened in these small-scale local conflicts, sometimes fighting each other as well as whichever faction of Red Guards or “Leftists” they had chosen to support that particular week. Until the end of 1969, battles continued to erupt sporadically in provinces like Guangxi and Sichuan, as Red Guards battled each other and assorted other factions. Though thousands of people died in these clashes, the real human toll of the Cultural Revolution came in the relentless persecutions of anyone who stood accused of being a “black element,” a “rightist,” a “counterrevolutionary,” a “rotten egg,” or any other of a host of labels that were affixed to countless people. The level of cruelty displayed in the Cultural Revolution was often inhuman and appalling; consider this oft-retold report from the New China News Agency: “A contingent of officials went to the home in Shanghai of a young lady named Lin Zhao, imprisoned for writing a diary that criticized the Communist Party. The officials told Lin’s mother that her daughter had been executed as a counterrevolutionary three days ago. Then, they added sarcastically that the money spent on the execution had been wasted, and they demanded that the mother pay five fen [roughly three cents] to cover the cost of the bullet they had put through the back of her daughter’s head.”
- Return to Not-So-Normalcy
The worst of the chaos ended in 1970, after the Red Guards were formally disbanded and the army was sent in to those cities in which large-scale disorder existed to end the fighting and restore some measure of normality. Nevertheless, China remained in a state of disarray; large-scale political campaigns continued and the general confusion engendered by the forced migration of many to the countryside continued unabated. In this climate of uncertainty and rapid turnover in the Party leadership, Defence Minister Lin Biao’s influence and power grew. He was designated as Mao’s successor in 1969 after the purging of Liu Shaoqi, and pushed for the position of President to be restored and that portfolio given to him. It was perhaps this step that caused Mao to question Lin’s reliability and loyalty, and in the latter stages of 1970 and continuing into 1971 whispers began to spread that Lin had lost Mao’s confidence and would be the next high-ranking Party leader to be purged. It is clear that Lin Biao was not unaware of these rumors. What is unclear is how he intended to respond. Some have suggested that he began preparations for a military coup that would oust Mao and place Lin himself at the seat of power in Zhongnanhai (5). Yet the point became moot on April 4, 1971, when Mao Zedong dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 78 (6). Mao’s sudden death should not have come as a surprise; he lived a legendarily unhealthy lifestyle full of chain-smoking, drinking, and womanizing in roughly equal measure, and he was not a young man. Nevertheless, the rapidity of his demise took everyone by surprise. Even before the Great Helmsman had been laid to rest, the factional infighting had already begun. What followed would change the People’s Republic of China forever . . .
NOTES
(1) In fairness to Wu’s inquisitors, Hai Rui Dismissed From Office was in all likelihood exactly what they claimed it was: a coded message of dissent against Mao.
(2) I’ve included this bit to emphasize that in the beginning, the title “Cultural Revolution” was quite literally correct; it was a revolution intended to change the cultural standards of the period and to place them more in line with what Mao considered to be proper socialist principles.
(3) Jiang Qing, formerly an actress of little note, was Mao Zedong’s fourth and final wife. OTL she outlived him, only to be sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment) as a member of the “Gang of Four” after the Cultural Revolution ended. ITTL her fate will be somewhat different.
(4) Kang Sheng was a close confidant of Mao’s who headed the Chinese secret police for many years and was one of the primary instigators of the Cultural Revolution.
(5) It’s unclear exactly what Lin Biao’s plans were in 1971. There is some suggestion that he and his son were preparing a coup under the name 五七一工程 (Wu qi yi gongcheng, or Project 571, which in Chinese sounds suspiciously similar to “military uprising”). But as far as I’m aware, there’s really no scholarly consensus on exactly how far the planning had progressed and whether Lin was ever really considering it as an option.
(6) So obviously, this is the POD. In real life Mao died in 1976, long after Lin Biao’s death, at a time when the Cultural Revolution had for all intents and purposes come to a close.
*Things get very different very quickly from here on out, as several factions will be making a move for power in the wake of Mao’s death. Lin Biao, of course, will be foremost among them, but the Cultural Revolution Group will also have a say in things, and Zhou Enlai is an interesting wild card. Thanks for reading.
- All the World’s a Stage
It all started with an editorial.
On November 10, 1965, an unsigned article written by Yao Wenyuan was published in the Shanghai-based newspaper 文汇报 (Wenhui bao). The article sharply criticized Wu Han, an eminent historian and a Deputy Mayor of Beijing, and branded him as a counterrevolutionary. The issue at hand was Wu’s popular historical drama 海瑞罢官 (Hai Rui baguan, or Hai Rui Dismissed From Office), which was published in 1959 and which initially received praise from Party luminaries including Mao Zedong himself. In his polemic, Yao argued that far from being a simple historical drama, Hai Rui Dismissed From Office was a coded denunciation of Mao’s policies and a requiem for Peng Dehuai, the former Defence Minister who had been purged after his criticism of Great Leap Forward-era agricultural policies (1). At first, it seemed as though nothing would come of the rather intemperate article. Peng Zhen, the Mayor of Beijing, defended Wu Han, plainly stating that the controversy was academic as opposed to political in nature. Yet events had been set in motion, and little by little the great boulder of revolution began to roll downhill, picking up speed as it went. In the spring of 1966 another harsh denunciation of Wu Han was published, which was followed by the formation of the 文革小组 (Wenge xiaozu, or Cultural Revolution Small Group) in May of that year . . . (2)
- Two Leaps Forward, One Leap Back
The initial attack on Wu Han was written by Yao Wenyuan at the behest of Jiang Qing (3). Yet the plan’s ultimate mastermind was none other than Mao Zedong. In the wake of the man-made famine caused by the misguided policies of the Great Leap Forward, which contributed to the unnecessary deaths of as many as twenty million people, Mao’s standing declined dramatically. He was forced to resign as General Secretary of the Communist Party, and in the early 1960s an increasing amount of power was given to more moderate figures including Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. Mao supported the Cultural Revolution for both ideological and personal reasons; ideologically, he felt that Chinese socialism had grown stale and ossified, and that the nation needed to be reacquainted with the idea of the permanent revolution. Personally, Mao wanted to regain the influence that he had lost and establish himself once more as the sun around which China revolved. In both respects, he succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.
- Youth In Revolt
Much of the impetus for the Cultural Revolution in its early days came from radical students, who took a very pro-Mao line and agitated against anything or anyone who could be classified as a counterrevolutionary. In May and June of 1966, the first 大字报 (dazibao, or big character posters) began to spring up on university campuses from Beijing to Shanghai. Around that time, a group of students from several Beijing high schools formed an organization dedicated to “protect[ing] the Party Central and to protect[ing] our great leader Chairman Mao.” They were called the 红卫兵 (Hongweibing, or Red Guards), and they soon began to clash with the “work teams” that had been sent into the schools by moderate leaders like Peng Zhen and Liu Shaoqi. The Red Guards eventually came to the attention of Mao Zedong and other members of the Cultural Revolution Small Group, including Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng (4), who began to support the students. Before long, the Red Guards had swept through the youth of the nation. Millions of students came to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to hear Mao Zedong speak, and total fealty to Mao Zedong Thought became the highest - and the only - virtue.
- The Old Stinking Ninth
Beginning in the fall of 1966 and continuing through 1968, a wave of violence and chaos swept through China. Spurred on to greater zeal by the words of Mao, Red Guards across the nation began to denounce and attack figures of authority, from their teachers to their parents. Intellectuals, who were dubbed 臭老九 (chou lao jiu, or “Old Stinking Ninth”) (5), perhaps fared worst of all; countless scholars and professors were subjected to “struggle sessions,” in which they were forced to issue self-criticisms, beaten, imprisoned, and sometimes simply killed. Indeed, beginning in 1966 many parts of Chinese society simply shut down; for example, the national college entrance exam ceased to exist for more than ten years. Millions of urbanites were “sent down” to the countryside, supposedly to learn from peasants and to purify themselves through manual labor. For some radical students, this was a task they undertook willingly; for many more people it was a punishment, and families were broken apart for years. Some Party leaders decided to follow Mao’s line at all costs, including Zhou Enlai and Defence Minister Lin Biao, whose influence increased during this period as he loudly and repeatedly pledged his undying and eternal loyalty to Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Officials who questioned the excesses of the Cultural Revolution - and many who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time - were purged (as in the case of Deng Xiaoping, who was sent down to the countryside for several years) or even executed, as was Liu Shaoqi’s fate.
- Better Dead Than Red
After the initial surge of revolutionary enthusiasm, the Red Guards factionalized and fought each other almost as much as they fought the so-called counterrevolutionaries. In cities like Wuhan, full-scale combat erupted in the streets between various local groups and factions, each of which was trying to prove that their adherence to Mao Zedong Thought was purer than that of their rivals. At times, army units intervened in these small-scale local conflicts, sometimes fighting each other as well as whichever faction of Red Guards or “Leftists” they had chosen to support that particular week. Until the end of 1969, battles continued to erupt sporadically in provinces like Guangxi and Sichuan, as Red Guards battled each other and assorted other factions. Though thousands of people died in these clashes, the real human toll of the Cultural Revolution came in the relentless persecutions of anyone who stood accused of being a “black element,” a “rightist,” a “counterrevolutionary,” a “rotten egg,” or any other of a host of labels that were affixed to countless people. The level of cruelty displayed in the Cultural Revolution was often inhuman and appalling; consider this oft-retold report from the New China News Agency: “A contingent of officials went to the home in Shanghai of a young lady named Lin Zhao, imprisoned for writing a diary that criticized the Communist Party. The officials told Lin’s mother that her daughter had been executed as a counterrevolutionary three days ago. Then, they added sarcastically that the money spent on the execution had been wasted, and they demanded that the mother pay five fen [roughly three cents] to cover the cost of the bullet they had put through the back of her daughter’s head.”
- Return to Not-So-Normalcy
The worst of the chaos ended in 1970, after the Red Guards were formally disbanded and the army was sent in to those cities in which large-scale disorder existed to end the fighting and restore some measure of normality. Nevertheless, China remained in a state of disarray; large-scale political campaigns continued and the general confusion engendered by the forced migration of many to the countryside continued unabated. In this climate of uncertainty and rapid turnover in the Party leadership, Defence Minister Lin Biao’s influence and power grew. He was designated as Mao’s successor in 1969 after the purging of Liu Shaoqi, and pushed for the position of President to be restored and that portfolio given to him. It was perhaps this step that caused Mao to question Lin’s reliability and loyalty, and in the latter stages of 1970 and continuing into 1971 whispers began to spread that Lin had lost Mao’s confidence and would be the next high-ranking Party leader to be purged. It is clear that Lin Biao was not unaware of these rumors. What is unclear is how he intended to respond. Some have suggested that he began preparations for a military coup that would oust Mao and place Lin himself at the seat of power in Zhongnanhai (5). Yet the point became moot on April 4, 1971, when Mao Zedong dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 78 (6). Mao’s sudden death should not have come as a surprise; he lived a legendarily unhealthy lifestyle full of chain-smoking, drinking, and womanizing in roughly equal measure, and he was not a young man. Nevertheless, the rapidity of his demise took everyone by surprise. Even before the Great Helmsman had been laid to rest, the factional infighting had already begun. What followed would change the People’s Republic of China forever . . .
NOTES
(1) In fairness to Wu’s inquisitors, Hai Rui Dismissed From Office was in all likelihood exactly what they claimed it was: a coded message of dissent against Mao.
(2) I’ve included this bit to emphasize that in the beginning, the title “Cultural Revolution” was quite literally correct; it was a revolution intended to change the cultural standards of the period and to place them more in line with what Mao considered to be proper socialist principles.
(3) Jiang Qing, formerly an actress of little note, was Mao Zedong’s fourth and final wife. OTL she outlived him, only to be sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment) as a member of the “Gang of Four” after the Cultural Revolution ended. ITTL her fate will be somewhat different.
(4) Kang Sheng was a close confidant of Mao’s who headed the Chinese secret police for many years and was one of the primary instigators of the Cultural Revolution.
(5) It’s unclear exactly what Lin Biao’s plans were in 1971. There is some suggestion that he and his son were preparing a coup under the name 五七一工程 (Wu qi yi gongcheng, or Project 571, which in Chinese sounds suspiciously similar to “military uprising”). But as far as I’m aware, there’s really no scholarly consensus on exactly how far the planning had progressed and whether Lin was ever really considering it as an option.
(6) So obviously, this is the POD. In real life Mao died in 1976, long after Lin Biao’s death, at a time when the Cultural Revolution had for all intents and purposes come to a close.
*Things get very different very quickly from here on out, as several factions will be making a move for power in the wake of Mao’s death. Lin Biao, of course, will be foremost among them, but the Cultural Revolution Group will also have a say in things, and Zhou Enlai is an interesting wild card. Thanks for reading.
